Well. There.

[akirlu]

For the first time in many a year, I have written, and much more to the point, finished, a story. As in fiction. Good lord.

athenais wanted a writing group, and I was thinking that some sort of structure to force me to write more regularly would be good, and because of athenais being of that bizarre breed of humans who actually implement ideas, deathless_pose was born. A group in which members write a new short story every week. So today was the deadline of week one, and I actually finished the thing! With, like, hours and hours to spare before the midnight deadline!

It's an interesting feeling, being finished. I feel a bit empty and deflated. The story is very much itself, and I think even after it has a chance to ferment and mellow on the shelf for a while, I may still like it. But in order to let the story be itself, there were a great many things that had to be left out, and I feel strangely wistful about those. Does the sculptor regret the marble chips, I wonder?

The process of getting finished was interesting too. The feeling of wading through knee-deep taffy to make progress was very familiar. Even when I have a pretty good idea of where I am going in a story, there is this sensation of something sucking at me, holding me back. Sometimes that's a real thing -- story decisions that I have to make before I write the next word. Sometimes it's just hesitation -- waiting for the arc of the trapeeze to get to the right point again before I leap. And, as usual, at least as much of the plotting transpired away from the keyboard, as at it. For whatever reason, structure comes to me when I'm not actually stringing together words. But again, there were surprises. The thing with the gun at the end -- I didn't plan that, I didn't even know it would happen until I wrote it and then it seemed the most natural and obvious thing in the world. It is so amazingly cool that that happens. And I often have trouble with rushing my endings. This one is quick, but I don't think it's rushed.

But, most of all: I FINISHED a STORY. Geezo.

Comments

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

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